A Conversation with Elizabeth Wurtzel, Author and First-Year Lawyer

Readers know we’ve been following the Wachovia/Citi/Wells Fargo situation fairly closely. But yesterday, we learned a little something new about the lawyers on the case. While Boies, Schiller & Flexner’s David Boies, George Frampton, Amy Neuhardt and Philip Bowman led the charge for Wachovia, Team Wachovia also picked up contributions this week from a first-year associate named Elizabeth Wurtzel. Yup, that Elizabeth Wurtzel — the author of Prozac Nation, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women, and More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction. Wurtzel graduated from Yale Law earlier this year and on Monday started life as a first-year associate at Boies Schiller.

Friday afternoon, we talked with Wurtzel, 41, who spent a good hour with us chatting about a range of things, from New York after 9/11 to the writing life to her first week in a pressure-filled law-firm office.

Hi Elizabeth, thanks for taking the time. Before we get to Boies Schiller, let’s take a step back. We’d read you had gone to law school, but hadn’t really gotten the lowdown on why you’d done that. So let’s ask. Why the heck did you go to law school?

You know, it’s something that others haven’t really gotten right. The truth is that I’d always wanted to go to law school. When I was in my 20s, I’d gotten the applications, but given everything that was going on, I’d never really had the time to go through with the effort. But I’d always thought it would be a great experience.

I had a really hard time after 9/11. I was basically living across the street from the World Trade Center, and a big chunk of debris fell on top of my building and the roof caved in. I thought I was going to die. Really. I’d never thought that before, but on that day I sat there and thought ‘I cannot believe it’s going to end this way.’ Afterward, I was very determined not to let this have an effect on me, but I couldn’t get there. I was really quite upset. I stayed in my apartment and read books about Islam and Osama bin Laden and American policy abroad and Israel and the Arabs and it became quite obsessive. I thought, ‘if this is what I’m doing with my time, I might as well go to school.’ So I applied.

What about your writing career at the time? I take it you were willing to set it aside for law school?

Well, ‘More, Now, Again’ came out right after 9/11 and it just sort of got lost in the miasma, which I really think is a shame because I think it’s by far the best thing I’ve done. I don’t think I really cared about my writing at that point. What was on my mind was that I wanted to learn more; nothing else felt that important.

And why law school?

I thought about other programs, but there’s something very substantial and effective about a law degree. If you want to go prosecute terrorists, you can do that with a law degree. But the bigger part of me was interested in teaching. I really thought that that’s what I would end up doing.

Did Yale live up to expectations?

Completely. I thought it was amazing. I really hadn’t taken advantage of my undergraduate years — I just partied through them — and I was immediately ready to work. I suppose the biggest adjustment was getting used to my peers. There was a big generation gap, and I learned pretty quickly that law students are fairly risk averse and cautious. They were so good! So well behaved! And so unlike a lot of the people I’d spent my 20s with. It was a bit of a shock, but I came to appreciate that mindset. Still, I tried to get them to lounge with me, but they wouldn’t. They don’t know how to lounge.

During one of your summers you worked at WilmerHale, right?

I did. I really liked it. I thought it was a great firm and would have been totally happy there. I actually liked writing memos about personal jurisdiction. I had loved civil procedure and evidence as a student and realized that it’d be a shame if I didn’t at least try to be a lawyer. In the end, I wanted to work part time at WilmerHale, and they weren’t too keen on that idea, so it didn’t work out. But I liked the summer there a lot.

So how did Boies Schiller come about?

Like everyone, I was a huge fan of David Boies, and from what I knew about him, I thought he might “get” me. So I sent him an email. I said I want to practice law but that I didn’t want to stop writing and I asked if there was any way I could practice law for him. I really didn’t think he’d be interested, but he called me up one day and asked if I was still interested. So we met and we talked and he offered me a job.

I take it you liked David when you met?

I can’t say enough about him. He’s a very engaging, mesmerizing person. He’s just so thoughtful about so many things. I’ve only been here a week, but the firm is just filled with brilliant people. It’s very impressive.

So did you work out a part-time arrangement?

The truth is that I’ll work full-time, probably. It’s just that I wanted to have a little of flexibility, like to be able to work from home from time to time. But I’m going to be working hard, I know, which is fine. The only thing for me at home is my dog, really. If I didn’t have a dog, I could live in the office.

Your first week sounded crazy. You walked right in on the Wachovia situation, right?

I did. Had I started a week earlier, my life might have been much different, but I got there too late to really get all that involved. But I did some research on it and I watched the team work. People were so devoted and serious and took great pains to look at every possible argument. It was very impressive to watch. People were there for a couple nights in a row, and I honestly found the dedication everyone showed really pretty moving.

So what happens to your writing career? Are you just putting it up on the shelf?

I don’t know what’ll happen. If law takes over, it’ll be because I’m enjoying it, because it’s interesting and worthwhile. I write a lot of op-eds, which don’t take a lot of time and I won’t stop doing that. I’ve also tried to turn my law-school thesis into a book.

Really? What’s that about?

It’s about how the Constitution created Hollywood, about creativity and the Constitution. To me, it’s just sort of mind-boggling that the framers put provisions in the Constitution that had to do with intellectual property. At the time, our country was a pretty rugged place, but it seems they had a hope of making the country a place in which creativity and invention could really flourish. So that’s what it’s about, and that’s what on my mind at the moment on the writing front.

It’s interesting. For a lot of lawyers, the life of a writer seems so ideal, or at least so opposite from what they know. A lawyer’s life is highly structured; a writer’s life, not so much. Are you ready for this much structure in your life?

I’m actually really looking forward to that. I used to feel that I spent too much of my time in my pajamas doing nothing, and I’d think ‘in the time that I don’t spend writing, I could raise a family of five.’ In a lot of ways, being a writer is lonely and alienating. You hear about the work ethic of people like Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike and you think ‘well, God bless them, but I don’t know how they do it.’ Most of the rest of us just wind up watching Oprah. I was roaming the neighborhood every day, lingering at the dog run with my dog. It was really bad. I just wasn’t doing enough, and I feel like law school sort of gave me my voice back. When you have a lot to do, you get a lot done. At least that’s how it’s been for me.

If I had gotten to [Boies Schiller] a week earlier, I might have been thrown into the Wachovia situation. Think how exciting and interesting that is! I’d be energized by something like that, which would give me more energy to do other things. Basically, I’m really excited to work hard.

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The Law Blog covers the legal arena’s hot cases, emerging trends and big personalities. It’s brought to you by lead writer Jacob Gershman with contributions from across The Wall Street Journal’s staff. Jacob comes here after more than half a decade covering the bare-knuckle politics of New York State. His inside-the-room reporting left him steeped in legal and regulatory issues that continue to grab headlines.

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